


When the Deed is Done

by Idol_pastimes



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26277070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idol_pastimes/pseuds/Idol_pastimes
Summary: When will you listen?When you've given your love and your loyalty and now, any sounds that were left to you?When will you listen?When will you learn?
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	When the Deed is Done

**Author's Note:**

> A random ficlet that's been floating around on my desktop for an age and is well and truly out-of-date and absolutely nonsensical now, having seen some of the spoilers for upcoming EE storylines. Shame; I thought (hoped) they were heading a different way with the boys, but we shall see how this next round of *Ben-is-bad-and-often-a-lying-liar-but-Callum-DETECTS-with-his-police-senses-and--BAM!-ANGST* plays out. Sigh. 
> 
> Anyhoo, might as well throw this teensy snippet of what could have been out into the void. It takes place on the night of the warehouse job.
> 
> (And at the very least it allows me to ignore the 25k fic I have burning a hole in my laptop that WILL NOT CO-OPERATE! Grr.)
> 
> Enjoy? :)

‘You really want know? Really?’

Callum’s eyes were wide with a mixture of exasperation and fear; of course he wanted to know – hadn’t he told Ben that a hundred, a _thousand_ times already? – but Ben couldn’t help but feel a frisson of panic at what was going to come out of his own traitorous mouth, at the terror that this time, maybe, _maybe_ Callum couldn’t handle it.

‘Just _tell me_ , Ben. And no more lies!’

His tongue darted out to wet lips that he’d been chewing unconsciously for the last five minutes, perhaps longer than that. Ben had been running on adrenaline and whisky for two hours at least, and he felt as though his skin was taut with it. With _everything_. Fury and frustration and stomach-dropping _terror_ and a blazing agony that was stabbing at his temple every time he inhaled. He forced himself to pull in a breath, and then another, desperate for his pulse to slow, to stop trying to leap its way out of his neck with every _thump_.

Callum took a step forward and Ben backed up, instinctive, hands raised, a stilted dance that pushed them further apart. The low mewl that drifted from his throat had his boyfriend’s mouth dropping open in shock and Callum pulled his hands back towards his own chest in a microsecond, holding them there, pinned as though _he’d_ hurt Ben somehow. As though he’d _ever_ hurt Ben.

‘No, no- don’t, it isn’t you-’

Ben couldn’t face that. Not Callum thinking it was him that had caused the flinch, that his broad, all-encompassing, oh-so-gentle hands would ever cause him to back away. He reached out, wrapped freezing cold fingers around Callum’s balled up fist, tugged it towards himself, made himself step forward, close enough to see the sheen of moisture in the eyes that stared, naked and fearful, into his own.

‘ _Please_. Ben.’

He didn’t need to read lips for that one. How many times was it now that had he done something unforgivable? How many times had he messed up, hurt people, lashed out and walked away, uncaring, and still, _still_ this beautiful man pleaded with him to share his life, his problems, _his_ pains. Ben knew he didn’t deserve him. Many other people knew it too. Had told him, on umpteen different occasions, in umpteen different ways. 

But he’d never needed them to. He’d always known it. Callum proved it more every day.

Ben’s other hand stroked across that flushed cheek and pushed the flat of his palm against Callum’s neck, wrist touching throat, pulse touching pulse. He could feel his own slowing, trying to match up, trying to force itself to fit with the pull and push of this man, _his_ man. 

Some days, he almost thought he was there. In sync, laughing and happy and _there_ , right there, in the moment, with Callum. In his world, just like he’d said they could, just like he’d promised.

And then, there were days like this. Days when his own actions and impulses ran him headlong into trouble, into pain and fear and utterly unnecessary, irredeemable situations. And for what?

He couldn't even answer that himself, after tonight. He was so stupid, so _stupid_ , to think that it would change anything. 

His head ducked and his mouth started to move before he could think any more. The words that rattled out of him jarred and caught, and he didn’t know how they sounded, if he was too loud or too quiet or if they were even in the right order, sometimes, because how would he know? How would he ever know again?

He was scared to look up, scared to meet those eyes and read in them everything that he’d done wrong. Terrified to watch the end of _this_ but knowing, deep down _knowing_ that it should. End.

How could it not? He was tearing it down. 

Every.

Single.

Day.

The silence that he hated so violently was shot through with resonant echoes and muffled thuds: the beat of his words, the rumble of his desperate apologies, the hammering of his heart as he pulled it up and out and threw it into the thick, judging quiet of the flat.

It felt as though the air was buzzing against his skin and for all that he couldn't hear himself speak, he could, just for a moment, fool himself into thinking that it was the fury and fear and force of his own pulse that was drowning out his voice. He closed his eyes and his mouth and for seconds drawn taut and long, just stood, waiting. If he didn't move, didn't speak, didn't _breathe_ , then maybe he wasn't here. Maybe none of this was true. Maybe he wasn't a liar and a thief. Maybe he was just Ben, and when he chose to open his eyes, when he chose to listen again, the world wouldn't know where he'd been, or what he'd done. Because saying words out loud doesn't mean that anyone's listening. Doesn't mean that he's been _heard_. 

Ben knew. He'd been talking for years, _decades_ even, and he'd never been able to make himself _heard_. 

The first he knew of the tears on his face was when warm fingertips wiped them away.

And the first he knew of the blood staining his collar, running from his ear, was when Callum steered him into the bathroom and dabbed it clean with a washcloth, tugging the t-shirt over his head and throwing it into the laundry basket without a second glance.

The first he knew of his hands shaking, his chest heaving, his face crumpling, was when Callum caught him up and pulled him to their room, onto their bed, and wrapped him in his arms and sheets, keeping him close and solid and warm until reality seeped back in.

The drag of the quilt over his shins, the heat of Callum's thighs and chest, the scratch of fingernails raking over his scalp. His throat gulping down air even as it babbled incoherence into Callum's skin.

The words _I’m sorry_ seemed to have lost all semblance of sense in his head; the syllables and sounds were breaking down and jamming in his mouth, cloying and wrong. But he couldn’t help but repeat them one last time.

Stirring, finally, sticky cheek peeling away from Callum’s throat and cool air rushing to jar his senses back. Dragging the glaring actuality of what he’d seen and done that night to the forefront of his memory. He felt sick and light and unable to move and he couldn’t fathom what he would do if Callum told him to go, to get out-

‘I’m sorry.’

It was all he could say.

It seemed like it was all that he ever said. 

But it never stopped being true. 

Even more so when faced with Callum’s reddened eyes, his clenched jaw, his still _so gentle_ fingers running over Ben’s forehead, tracing the curve of his ear and cupping his neck.

Especially when he meets Ben’s gaze and knocks his nose against Ben’s own, and speaks the words that say nothing but tell Ben everything about this man and his capacity to love him, hold him, keep him, even when Ben wishes for Callum’s own sake that he wouldn’t.

He couldn’t hear Cal’s voice, didn’t know if the words were even spoken aloud. But they roared in his head, in his chest, pushing more tears up and out, burning his skin and seeping through Callum’s white t-shirt as the night grew older and the morning crept close.

‘I know.’


End file.
